Stephen Curry opening eyes

The son of Dell Curry led Davidson’s upsets over Gonzaga and Georgetown.

DAVIDSON, N.C. (AP) — Basketball has been part of Stephen Curry’s life since he was almost no bigger than a basketball himself.

He was 2-weeks old when his mother, Sonya, took him to watch his father, Dell, play for the Cleveland Cavaliers. The infant stayed awake the entire game, eyes fixed on the court.

Now the little guy the big schools didn’t want is the star of this year’s big surprise in the NCAA tournament.

Davidson (28-6) is in the Sweet 16 for the first time in 39 years, two games from duplicating upstart George Mason’s run to the Final Four two years ago.

“We couldn’t have scripted it any better,” Dell Curry said. “There was a reason he was the smallest kid in high school. There’s a reason he didn’t get recruited big. He couldn’t be on a brighter stage right now. Small school, small player doing big things.”

As a sophomore in high school, only 5-foot-6, Stephen had to shoot from his waist because he lacked the strength to release the ball from eye level.

Dell Curry made him change the release before his junior year, but for a while Stephen couldn’t hit the rim from outside the lane.

“It was a struggle for him, a tough summer,” his father said. “He was frustrated. I was frustrated, but he stuck with it.”

In a couple of months Curry developed the correct shooting form — and a quick release. Still, the big schools, including his father’s alma mater, Virginia Tech, wouldn’t offer a scholarship.

“I understood that he did not have the body that most ACC programs, SEC programs are looking for,” Davidson coach Bob McKillop said. “He did look a little frail. He did look very young for his age.”

But McKillop had known Curry since he was 10 years old and played on the same baseball team as McKillop’s son. And he knew about Curry’s basketball IQ — refined over years of watching his father’s accurate touch, learning how to read screens and defenses.

When Stephen was a year old, Dell Curry was selected by the Hornets in the expansion draft. He spent the next 10 years in Charlotte, and took Stephen and his younger son Seth to every practice and shootaround he could.

“I took them at a very young age because I knew nobody was going to have to be a baby sitter,” Dell Curry said. “They were very disciplined and they were going to watch what was going on, not make noise.”

Stephen spent entire games only watching his dad, a career 40 percent 3-point shooter.

“Little things you pick up, they help you a lot,” he said. “Just knowing where to be and seeing things in advance. For my size, that helps me a lot, just being one step ahead of everyone else.”

When practice was over, Stephen would often challenge the player closest to his size — 5-foot-3 Muggsy Bogues — to a game of 1-on-1.

“He was just like a son,” Bogues recalled this week. “You always wanted to encourage him and tell him little things that he could use. He was always inquisitive, always asking questions. ‘How do you do this? How do you react to that situation?’ He always was competing.”

Last weekend, it was Bogues’ turn to watch Curry. And like the rest of the country, Bogues was stunned with what he saw.